Gary Hamel states in his famous book "The Future of Management" that management  has become a maturing technology that has evolved rapidly in the first half of the 20th century and now reached a local peak. I found this intriguing and since I started my research into the consulting services market it has been the maxim of my work.

My journey began in 2008 with doing extensive research on the evolution of management over the past 100 years. We identified the key management paradigms and models and defined what a paradigm and model in management basically is. This analysis led to the first report "Innovating Strategic Management Paradigms And Models To Thrive Amid Global Change". At this time however, we focused primarily on industry and academia-driven paradigms and models.

A couple of weeks ago I finished a review of the key M&A events in the software and services markets in the first half of 2009. In the research we analyzed the M&A, including divestment, activities of about 100 leading software and services providers. Unsurprisingly the volume of M&A deals was not very high, but what was key to our approach was examining the drivers underlying the acquisitions – why were companies making transactions and how would they affect their portfolio and go-to market approaches.

For my latest report -- Innovating Corporate Strategy Services -- I analyzed services providers' (from classical management consulting firms to traditional IT providers, from very small to very large organizations) track record in the innovation of lead themes or paradigms.

Thought leadership efforts play a highly significant role, especially in consulting services (they grant you access to the big guys, they drive new services and engagements, and generate recognition in an IP- dominated environment), however I was surprised about the small number that I found in the end.

All the smart people, all the dedicated research organizations, and obviously all the great client engagements have not really led to more sophisticated forward-looking thinking and "next big things"

Two key conclusions I came up with:

1. Most IT providers lag the vision thing: In a world shifting from IT to BT, providers must become not only tech but business visionaries. They tend to assimilate to trends and paradigms rather than innovate or shape them.

...represents a real opportunity for M&A services providers. While conducting my research into the M&A and broader corporate strategy services space, I observed that business intelligence and performance management (BI&PM) programs are still very high on the executive agenda. Increased investment in analytic capabilities, as well as moves to becoming more sophisticated and transparent, will lead to the end of the highly diversified organization. Why? With these new capabilities companies will have a better picture of their portfolio and will be able to more wisely invest/divest into core/non-core-related assets. In the next 4-5 years we will see -- induced/accelerated by the recession -- that companies will move closer again to their core business, and not only for cost reasons. Hence BI&PM will fuel M&A activity and also lead to better M&As. I am postulating that there is a positive correlation between "analytic maturity " and " M&A maturity".